Time for an archive, since I nearly forgot until it was too late. I need to start writing backlogs of these games, especially since I've been going through quite a few lately.
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Title: Dead Rising (XBox 360)
Released: August - September 2006
One of the earlier titles released for the XBox360, Dead Rising was made by Capcom, I believe, in an attempt to also display the XBox360's processing power. It really does show, when you play the game anyway. The cinematics leave much to desire out of the game, and they try their hardest when it comes to that.
You play as Frank West throughout the entire game. Word on the street was that something was going on in Willamette, Colorado, so Frank hires a private helicopter to take him over the town. Frank's task from there is to collect photos of the chaos that is going down within the city, which was much more than he originally expected. With the military quarantining the entire city off, he smells something suspicious going on, and intends to investigate by dropping into the super mall. A deal he struck with the helicopter pilot gives him three days to investigate the strange events around the city and meet up with his ride to civilization, or he will suffer the same fate as the city's citizens.
Thrown into a large mall for three whole days may sound like an ideal time-spender, but if you were in Frank's shoes, you'd have something else to worry about than money: zombies. That's right... We're talking the brain-eating, slow-moving, flesh-rotting zombies that plague many horror games and movies. For some reason, the entire population of Willamette, CO has turned into zombies and are congregating in the local mall, attempting to feast on the survivors that hide within.
The game really does throw you into a massive feast-frenzy with zombies in the beginning. Basicl controls are: you move around with the control stick, no real way to go faster than by doing this; the X button is your attack command, and many of the items you will come to pick up (using B to interact with doors and items, among anything else) will use the same button as well. You can jump using the A button, but it's not very high, or far if you're moving while pressing it. If you press Y, Frank will attempt to see if there is anyone around he can help. If he has some survivors following him, he'll attempt to catch their attention and make them come towards him.
By holding the right trigger, Frank can bring up a target reticule to be either used for throwing items (Right Trigger + X) or by informing the survivor team he has to head to a specific point he's looking at (Right Trigger + Y). Meanwhile, by holding the left trigger, you can aim with your camera and attempt to take some pictures of the unkempt models that dredge through the mall's interior and exterior. X takes a picture, while A and B zooms the camera in and out. Other than wasting film for sweet action shots, or taking photographs of specific survivors, taking pictures is one of many ways that Frank can level up.
Photo Points (PP) are obtained from taking photos, killing a certain amount of zombies, meeting up with and rescuing survivors, or defeating specific boss-like enemies throughout the mall. You'd think it'd be easy to level up, if all you had to do was kill zombies, but the amount of PP that they give you for doing this really doesn't make it any easier. In fact, the best ways to go about leveling are rescuing the survivors or killing the bosses that you will learn of through the story itself, as well as specific scoops that Otis, the security guard, will phone you up to give you.
It's simple enough to just sit around idly with your game turned on and pass through all of the days, but Capcom thought of such a thing, and made it to where you had to do a storyline throughout the long time. 72-Hour Mode, the one mentioned throughout most of this post, is the only mode that you have access to until you actually beat the game. All of the optional survivor scoops are... well, optional, but there is one specific line of scoops that you HAVE to complete, I believe. It involves the mystery surrounding the mall and all of Willamette's citizens being zombies. Every single scoop is time crucial, meaning you have from a specific time to another time to complete it, or else it's lost, and this does place you in some sticky situations, such as rushing from one part of the mall clear across to another, getting something, and running all the way back to the only safe haven in the entire mall: the security room. With only one entrance into the security room, it makes the entire process of rescuing the survivors also a bit crunch-worthy, as you had better plan your escapades out in the mall beforehand, or you may end up running around with a full squad of survivors, and getting munched at the elevator.
The game's great, and I'm all for mindlessly beating up zombies. However, if your XBox360 hasn't been updated, or come with, the NXE update for the dashboard, chances are your XBox360 will have some trouble with some of the areas. That's why I'd suggest having the NXE and installing the game itself onto a hard drive, that way it doesn't work as hard to load the massive amount of zombies that you'll have in one section of the mall. I've heard that the game itself, although originally made near the launch of the XBox360, was the cause of many "Red Ring of Death" incidents, and I wouldn't want that to happen to others.
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Suffice to say, the game had rough edges to it, and they did their best when releasing the sequel, Dead Rising 2, to take care of many of the problems the first game had. They succeeded, let's just end it with that.
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